1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an optical connector to which an optical fiber cord including an optical fiber ribbon is to be attached, and also to a method of attaching an optical fiber cord to the optical connector.
2. Description of the Background Art
Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-224195 describes an optical connector to which an optical fiber cord is attached such that a splice reinforcement part and a ferrule are provided in a housing of the optical connector altogether, wherein the splice reinforcement part is a part reinforced with a reinforcing sleeve at a fusion spliced portion of embedded optical fibers, which are inserted in and fixed to the ferrule, and a plurality of optical fibers included in the optical fiber cord and exposed at an end portion of the optical fiber cord.
With the above-mentioned conventional technique, when the optical fiber cord is pulled with a force, the optical fiber cord might be detached from the optical connector because the sheath of the optical fiber cord is not fixed to the optical connector. If any structure for fixing the sheath of the optical fiber cord is provided, it would increase the size of the optical connector, and consequently high-density arrangement of a plurality of such optical connectors having an optical fiber cord would become difficult.
In the case of the above-mentioned conventional technique, a rod-shaped reinforcement is embedded in the reinforcement sleeve. Providing one rod-shaped reinforcement only might cause warping of the reinforcement sleeve when the reinforcement sleeve is subjected to heat shrink. However, providing a plurality of rod-shaped reinforcements in the reinforcement sleeve would increase the size of a reinforcement sleeve.
In a male-type optical connector, which has guide pins, of the above-mentioned conventional technique, a pin clamp for preventing a guide pin from slipping out is formed in the rear part of a ferrule body such that a guide pin of the pin clamp is penetrated through a guide pin hole of the ferrule body. On the other hand, the pin clamp is unnecessary with respect to a female-type optical connector which has no guide pins. However, there are cases where a spacer equivalent to a pin clamp is provided so that coordination with the operation characteristics of a male-type optical connector may be obtained. Since such a spacer is a minute part, it is difficult to perform positioning of the ferrule body and the spacer, which would result in degradation of workability in the assembling of the optical connector.